Monday, October 08, 2012

Krugthulu

None of this should be taken to imply that the situation is good, or to
deny that we should be doing better — a shortfall largely due to the
scorched-earth tactics of Republicans, who have blocked any and all
efforts to accelerate the pace of recovery. (If the American Jobs Act,
proposed by the Obama administration last year, had been passed, the
unemployment rate would probably be below 7 percent.) The U.S. economy
is still far short of where it should be, and the job market has a long
way to go before it makes up the ground lost in the Great Recession. But
the employment data do suggest an economy that is slowly healing, an
economy in which declining consumer debt burdens and a housing revival
have finally put us on the road back to full employment.

And that’s the truth that the right can’t handle. The furor over
Friday’s report revealed a political movement that is rooting for
American failure, so obsessed with taking down Mr. Obama that good news
for the nation’s long-suffering workers drives its members into a blind
rage. It also revealed a movement that lives in an intellectual bubble,
dealing with uncomfortable reality — whether that reality involves polls
or economic data — not just by denying the facts, but by spinning wild
conspiracy theories.

It is, quite simply, frightening to think that a movement this deranged wields so much political power.